When the book was first published, The Irish Times' review of it called it 'a work of unparalleled depravity.' The paperback edition gleefully used this as a cover blurb. Insult Backfire: A somewhat meta example.

Hair-Trigger Temper: Fail to keep up with Eric's deranged trains of thought and he smashes up phone boxes and does unkind things to puppies.Groin Attack: Very much Played for Drama in Frank's backstory.Freudian Excuse: Frank's childhood accident.Creepy Monotone: Deadpan, intellectual, not-supposed-to-be-ironic musings on the nature of democracy and its similarities to Frank's defunct conscience, squeezed in between unsentimental, matter-of-fact descriptions of being a seven-year-old serial killer? Definitely qualifies on this trope.Coming of Age Story: A dark, horrific, and deeply warped one, but one nonetheless.Berserk Button: For Eric, pretty much anything involving dogs.about the only thing he doesn't use is an axe. Bombs, fires, catapulting weapons at victims, catapulting victims at weapons, snakes, kites. Provides examples of the following tropes: As Frank begins to relate the circumstances which led to his brother's breakdown, he also begins to dig deeper into his father's secrets, leading to several deeply unpleasant revelations. In addition to this he has also murdered three members of his family.įrank's horrific and insular world is disrupted when he begins receiving calls from his older brother Eric who has escaped from his mental institution. Frank's daily routine consists of disturbing shamanistic rituals, which include brutal animal sacrifice, that he believes give him control over the island. It tells the story of Frank Cauldhame, your average sixteen year-old murdererous sociopath who lives with his highly secretive father on an isolated island in North East Scotland. The Wasp Factory is a 1984 novel written by Iain Banks. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.

The wasp factory book